When the distinguished artist Seitu K. Jones came to meet me yesterday morning at the Minnesota Museum of American Art in downtown St. Paul, he did so in quintessential Twin Cities fashion: He rode his bike. “It’s all downhill from Frogtown,” he told me, breaking into a relaxed grin. “That’s why this is Lowertown.” Read on for more about his show at the M, as the museum is known. Also today, our colleague Tiffany Hsu shares her reporting about a Minnesota lawsuit regarding what counts as election disinformation. But first, here are a few local headlines.
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At 75, Jones has been a fixture of the Twin Cities arts scene for decades. But he’s never been the focus of a major solo museum exhibition, until now. “This is the first time that an institution has wanted to tell my particular story,” Jones said. “Now, why did it take until I’m an old, bald-headed man to do that? I’m not sure. It might be because I am that old, bald-headed Black artist, but that’s a question that the institutions in town have to answer as well.” The result is a show of remarkable scope, which spans Jones’s career. “The Smell of Earth: Seitu K. Jones Working in the Elements,” which went on view yesterday at the M, highlights the more intimate side of an artist who is well known for his public art. “This is a look inside my brain,” Jones told me as we walked through the exhibition. There are views of his body as well. Among his self-portraits are two monumental charcoal drawings from 2023, “Flight” and “At Peace,” which find the artist in blissful ascent. The sobering “Self Portrait” (2016), by contrast, is displayed flat on the gallery floor and depicts Jones lying on asphalt, eyes closed, near a pair of boots worn by an unseen figure. Jones’s self-portraits put him “in these situations that African American men have found themselves in for the last 400 years,” he said. The oil painting “Strange Fruit (Self Portrait)” (2020) depicts a tree in full Minnesota fall color, with a pair of feet hanging from its branches.
Another pair of feet in the nearby “Roots (Self Portrait)” (2020) appears literally rooted to farmland. The artist’s longstanding interest in food, agriculture and landscape provides a recurring motif. Jones pointed to an unfinished picture of himself as a young child, painted by his father. “I grew up in this creative family. Nobody ever discouraged me from being an artist,” he said. Born and raised in Minneapolis, Jones now lives in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood, where he hopes to build a center dedicated to preserving the legacies of artists of color. Jones owns the necessary land, and preliminary plans have been designed; the artist and his team are currently developing programming and seeking funds. “I’ve always said that there’s much more to Minnesota life than Lake Wobegon,” said Jones, while standing next to a slide show of his past work. “There are all these stories that need to be told, and this is just one little piece of that story.” Go deeper: Read a MinnPost profile of Jones and his work. An opening reception for the exhibition will be held on Thursday, Oct. 29. MISINFORMATION IN MINNESOTA
As someone who writes about artificial intelligence, false narratives and propaganda, as well as public trust in the information ecosystem, Minnesota has been on my mind a lot this year. The year kicked off with an onslaught of news about federal immigration officers shooting two Minneapolis residents, Good and Pretti, killings that led to cases of mistaken identity and debates over the reliability of content generated or enhanced by A.I. During that time, the White House posted an image of a protester, the civil rights lawyer Nekima Levy Armstrong, that had been digitally altered to make it appear as though Levy Armstrong had been crying as she was arrested. This underscored for me just how much the topography of authoritative sources has changed.
In recent months, Minnesotans have seen social media accounts featuring incredibly realistic A.I.-generated influencers claiming to be locals, the ripple effect of false claims about Haitian immigrants and baseless voter fraud claims from a Trump-backed candidate for governor (who suffered a double-digit loss in the August primary). So when I heard about the case I wrote about today, which involves a free speech tussle over a law governing deceptive practices around elections, I was not surprised that the North Star State was involved. From my article: The case has unfolded in a rapidly changing information environment, especially around elections. Public suspicion and polarization are exacerbated by lax content moderation, distrust in authoritative sources is fanned from the highest political office, and increasingly powerful artificial intelligence technology is undermining faith in reality. Read the full article, free for readers of The Local. YOUR TIMES
Three of our colleagues will be joining Kathleen Hennessey, the editor of The Minnesota Star Tribune, for a panel discussion on Monday at the University of Minnesota’s Best Buy Theater. Patrick Healy, our assistant managing editor for standards and trust, helps ensure the ethical rigor of New York Times journalism. David Guttenfelder, a visual journalist who has covered conflict and crisis across the globe, is based in Minneapolis and covered Operation Metro Surge. Ernesto Londoño, familiar to our readers, is a National correspondent based in St. Paul. The panel is titled “Bearing Witness: A Discussion About Journalism Locally and Nationally.” It’s free to the public, with registration required. A pop-up exhibition of photojournalism, part of The Times’s 175th anniversary celebration, will also be on campus, on Church Street outside Murphy Hall, from Monday through Thursday. In The Times this week:
WEATHER
Summer just does not want to leave us, with highs in the 70s through tomorrow. Another inevitable cool-down begins Sunday and stretches into the week. OPE! JUST ONE MORE THING
When Tiffany was in the Twin Cities, she stopped for breakfast at a Minneapolis institution. “A good meal and walk always gets my brain going,” she told us, “so I woke up at 6 a.m. to meet a friend at the hallowed local institution Al’s Breakfast. The 76-year-old greasy spoon in Dinkytown is supposedly the narrowest restaurant in the city — just 10 feet across, with only 14 stools. After paying my handwritten bill, I took to the Third Avenue Bridge to walk off my Leonard scramble.” Thanks for taking a break with us this afternoon! Have a great weekend. Games
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The Local: Seitu K. Jones gets overdue museum show
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